Some Malaysian Bilingual Student Teachers: A Profile

Abstract

Bilingualism is very much a part of the culturally diverse Malaysian scene, but is often taken for granted, as are bilingual teachers. This paper is part of a study on student teachers, the majority having Malay as the dominant home language. All the student teachers have had their primary and secondary schooling in Malay medium schools, but have studied English as a subject while in school. Nevertheless, English is used more often than Malay when communicating with current course mates and the choice of which language to use in reading and writing also favours English. All are able to rise to academic demands in both English and Malay by the end of their programme. However, although they are apparently competent bilinguals, when teaching, the student teachers have problems switching between the languages of instruction, in the use of various registers, and in communicating with pupils with low linguistic ability. The paper describes findings which have been based on a self-rating scale by 318 undergraduate TESL student teachers at a Malaysian university, responses to a self-rating scale by twenty TESL teachers and case studies of twenty bilingual student teachers, involving introspection, interviews, taped transcripts and observations.